Bad News

1

At low tide the inhuman mire mounts.
The water is red
receding, scalding
the rocks it uncovers:
It is your blood ebbing out of your veins
into the sea,
and you will have to wait
for the tide to come back
to raise your head
again, to rise.

On Swan’s Island the children gather
wild raspberries,
rake the clearing clean in minutes,
below the lighthouse,
that, boarded up,
gives off no shadow
in the fierce
unrepentant light;
no relief for eight
red palms.

The stillness whispers:
A snake glides through the grass.
As we swim in the quarry
a scream is heard
over their shouts, somewhere beyond
the high ridge of dynamited granite.
All heads crane up toward its echo at once.

2

You have longed to vanquish this unease
and now it’s been done
without your willing.
What a blessing, death,
nature’s friend and (false) comforter.
What a balm after so much
exertion. Listen:
in the windless air
the trees are at peace and the roads
quiet.
These ditches, hollowed
like coffins by all this rain
need little work
to house us for eternity.

3

Here are the fields wherein
we lay, taking cover
in ditches as the sky

darkened, thunder
backfired and the earth
began to tremble:

We mistook these sounds
for a convoy of trucks
which never appeared.

After so much holding back
comes the final letting go.
What on earth could be more wonderful!

An hour till sunset:
There won’t
be one today.

The next time
you walk along this shore
it will be without manacles.

Or not at all.

4

That mightxxredeemxxthe time
and salvagexxthis departure
as whenxxthe haze swallowsxxthe sea
the skyxxentirelyxxand all
sounds comexxfrom unconsidered
perilous sourcesxxfissures appear
and everythingxxthat held us here
is gonexxand the gongxxresounds
in an evacuated squarexxhollowly
as if the fishesxxof the sea
could learnxxto listen.

Still truexxthe sea heals.

My fingersxxcrossed
for yourxxsurvival